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El Nino Odds High As Pacific Ocean Warms

Water temperature profile, Equatorial Pacific Ocean, January 1997 – NOAA ImageBy Phoebe Sedgman (Bloomberg) – An El Nino weather pattern, which can parch parts of Australia and Asia while bringing rains to South America, will probably develop in the next few months as the Pacific Ocean warms, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says.

The chances of El Nino developing during the southern hemisphere winter are more than 70 percent, the bureau said on its website today.

It is too early to determine the strength of the possible weather pattern, it said.

Australia’s winter starts in June and runs to the end of August.

El Ninos affect weather worldwide and can roil agricultural markets as farmers contend with drought or too much rain.

The phenomenon often touches off warmer winters across the northern U.S., heavier rains from southern Brazil to Argentina and drier conditions across Southeast Asia, Indonesia and eastern Australia.

It also can lead to a calmer Atlantic hurricane season and a stormier winter in the U.S. south.

“Surface and sub-surface ocean temperatures have warmed considerably in recent weeks, consistent with a state of rapid transition,” the Melbourne-based bureau said.

The pattern would come after this year’s dry spell parched some Brazilian growing areas. Prices for arabica coffee surged 81 percent this year. The S&P GSCI gauge of eight crops climbed 16 percent over the same time.

Southern Oscillation

The Southern Oscillation Index, which indicates the development and intensity of El Nino or La Nina events, was at minus 9, according to the bureau. Sustained negative values below minus 8 may indicate an El Nino event, it said.

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center issued an El Nino watch last month. There’s a 52 percent chance that the Pacific Ocean will warm enough to trigger the pattern late this summer or in early fall, according to climate scientist Michelle L’Heureux. The odds of El Nino emerging later in the northern hemisphere summer are 75 percent, MDA Weather Services said last month.

While the pattern will probably start changing global weather from May, it will begin as a mild to weak event and take many months to meet the definition of an El Nino, Drew Lerner, president at World Weather Inc. said this month.

The last El Nino occurred in 2009 to 2010, and since then a cooling called La Nina and a period of neutral conditions have held sway, according to the Climate Prediction Center.

While "Flavor" is very subjective, and each country that grows mangoes is very nationalistic, these are the mango varieties that are the most sought after around the world because of sweetnesss (Brix) and demand.The Chaunsa has a Brix rating in the 22 degree level which is unheard of!Carabao claims to be the sweetest mango in the world and was able to register this in the Guiness book of world records.Perhaps it is time for a GLOBAL taste test ???

Mangaluru: Vagaries of nature is expected to take a toll on the production of King of Fruits - Mango - in Karnataka this year. A combination of failure of pre-monsoon showers at the flowering and growth stage and spike in temperature in mango growing belt of the state is expected to limit the total production of mango to an estimated 12 lakh tonnes in the current season as against 14 lakh tonnes in the last calendar year.

However, the good news for fruit lovers is that this could see price of mangoes across varieties decrease marginally by 2-3%. This is mainly on account of 'import' of the fruit from other mango-growing states in India, said M Kamalakshi Rajanna, chairperson, Karnataka State Mango Development and Marketing Corporation Ltd.

Karnataka is the third largest mango-growing state in India after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Inaugurating a two-day Vasanthotsava organized by Shivarama Karantha Pilikula Nisargadhama and the Corporation at P…